NFHS is introducing a new uniform sports course in collaboration with Special Olympics

To better understand how to implement a Special Olympics Unified Sports® program at the interscholastic level, the NFHS, in collaboration with Special Olympics North America, developed the Administering Interscholastic Unified Sports course, now available free of charge at the NFHS Learning Center (www.nfhslearn.com).

Unified Sports is an inclusive sports program that brings Special Olympics athletes (individuals with intellectual disabilities) and partners (individuals without intellectual disabilities) together as teammates for training and competition. “Administering Interscholastic Unified Sports” is the second Unified Sports course in the Learning Center, following “Coaching Unified Sports.”

“We are excited to offer this course as more schools offer Unified Sports opportunities for students,” said Dan Schuster, NFHS director of educational services. “This course is a wonderful resource for schools wanting to learn how to implement Unified Sports programs in their building and community.”

“This course was developed in response to the growing demand for more guidance on how Unified Sports should be implemented at the high school interscholastic level,” said Brian Quinn, director of programming and partnerships for Special Olympics North America. “We know that all of our great administrators and coaches want the best for our students, and I think this course has done an excellent job of laying out that vision of quality in a concise format. We are so excited to launch our second course with our partners at NFHS.”

This new Learning Center course is designed to support and guide administrators in implementing a Unified Sports program by providing them with various policies, strategies, components, and scenarios related to the program.

Unit two – “A Leading Driver of Inclusion” – provides a brief overview of the history of Unified Sports and the three components of the Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools® program. Unit three on Interscholastic Unified Sports examines the benefits and opportunities athletes receive through participation.

Unit Four – “Guidelines for Managing Unified Sports” – provides eight key implementation guidelines to ensure all athletes and partners have safe, competitive and meaningful experiences. The final unit includes practice scenarios that may occur when attempting to implement a Unified Sports program.

For more information about the Administering Interscholastic Unified Sports course, visit:

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